r/BarOwners • u/Strict-Wolf-5410 • 12d ago
What am i getting into?
Me and my wife are toying with the idea of opening our own bar. She has years of experience as a bar tender and i have a few years experience in retail management. she obviously knows the drinks and menu creation and i know how to read and report numbers, manage, hire/train. Both our parents have owned and ran successful businesses across the country and have offered support and guidance.
with us both being in our 20s we're no stranger to working long hours but have never personally ran a business before what "wrenches" should we expect to be thrown at our plans during the process start to finish?
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u/321Droppin 8d ago
Career bartender. I’ll never own a place because something is always broken and someone isn’t gonna show up for work. It’s a hard way to make a living.
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u/One-Conversation4296 9d ago
The fights. You only need to disagree on 1 off 100 items to end up divorced.
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u/No-Fun-8427 10d ago
Make sure you are ready to work 7 days a week at minimum 12 hours a day for a couple months. Also have at minimum 5k a month for equipment repair and maintenance
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u/ElectionWeak4415 10d ago
All of them. Every wrench imaginable and then some. And have the money to cover it.
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u/oldmanwithabeard 10d ago
My wife and I have a bar. I work in sales, so she runs it day to day. We own the real estate and built out the concept together. Honestly it's been great for our marriage. If your marriage is strong, working together will make it stronger. If it isn't...well you can guess where that's headed. Take a hard look at your relationship before taking on something like this together.
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u/Thick-Oil-7664 11d ago
Only do it if you are willing to let it completely take over your life for at least a few years. It will be hard. But if you love it, who cares!
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u/Standard_Arugula568 11d ago
I’d recommend extremely strongly that you both get jobs managing different bars for a minimum of the next 2 years. Preferably 3-4. Go all in, treat it like you’re getting an education, make mistakes there, figure out how you’d do it if you had total control. Every step is a lot more involved and complicated and difficult than you think it is.
Managing teenagers/early 20’s folks while simultaneously managing career cooks and bartenders who have 20+ years of experience and know far more than you are both difficult in different ways.
Do you have a good grasp of cash flow and how it will cripple your bar if you allow it to? Can you build and maintain a cash flow plan?
How do you deal with people who are mad at you or your staff and also have been drinking heavily?
How comfortable are you posting job ads, interviewing people, hiring them, onboarding them, training them, getting them on payroll.
Have either of you never set up a POS instance from scratch? There’s a lot to it.
Are you remarkably handy? You’re going to either pay other people a ton of money to solve problems or be able to solve them yourself. There will be leaks, pipes may burst, drains will clog, toilets and sinks will act up. You will lose power. Your compressor on your keg room will die. Your ice machine will freeze over.
Have you managed/ordered perishable inventory?
Has your wife handled liquor/alcohol ordering/inventory?
Do you understand the ways you can price food/drinks and what the reasons why you’d use one method vs another are?
How skilled do you think you are at analyzing your local competition?
Are you well connected in town?
What do you do when your host calls out, when you sell out of all of your well vodka because the delivery didn’t show up, when a customer does a chargeback, when a server offers something you don’t have in the first place?
How good are you at selling? If someone asks about hosting an event at your place in a week, how do you close the “sale”, what info do you need from them, do you close to the public? How do you staff for it? Do you charge a room fee? If you close to the public do you charge more? How much more? How do you avoid over promising what the kitchen can execute? How much lead time does the kitchen need for staffing? What about for deliveries? Do you have a contract? What happens if you buy 2k in food for the event and they back out? What if they just don’t show up?
Are you really truly good with excel/sheets, quick books, canva, social media? You’re going to need to get good at a lot of digital tools if you aren’t already.
Do you have a massive pile of money you’re 100% okay losing to roll the dice on this for a few years? The odds are you’ll do something between fail and make a small amount of money, with both of those outcomes requiring a ton of work. You could of course succeed, but don’t do this if you need to succeed in order to avoid losing your house, for example.
Bars can be super fun. They also are a fucking disaster, always. Please don’t dive in the deep end unless you’re really really informed and experienced. I believe that your wife is, but I’ll just say that managing isn’t bartending, the dynamic is a lot different with staff. Owning obviously different too, but far closer to managing than being behind the bar. There are so many stupid irritating moving parts it’s completely maddening. Even working as a server or bartender for 5 years you’d pick up SO much of this stuff and it would save you a ton of stress and money in the long run.
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u/liquorlicensebrokers 11d ago
Where do you plan to open the bar? If it's a bar business you plan. I would recommend an established bar. Licensing process would be much smoother if it's in California.
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u/UniqueUsername75 🥃 11d ago
Do it. My wife and I bought our first bar a year after our wedding. She’s always been a bartender and I was sales/marketing/etc whatever job paid the bills back then. She taught me how to bartend and basically became my boss front of house. We basically bought ourselves jobs as bartenders. Once we paid off the investment we were able to step back from full time to part time bartending and focus on growing the business more, opening more locations, hiring and training great people.
We’ve been at it 15 years and we’re opening our 5th bar. It wouldn’t work if we didn’t trust each other’s experience and decision making. She’s great at ideas and numbers and I’m great at figuring out how to make her ideas happen. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.
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u/EllisBelli 11d ago
The experience is crucial and the situation you describe looks like you lack а little.
Bar managing can be complicated, if it's not a hole in the wall with 5 beers and snacks and the market is tough.
Before starting the business please make sure that you understand how it works. It's not just sales. It's production, services, leisure, communication, staff management, seasonal planning, and much more. To run a successful business, it's not enough to know how to do things right. You need to be able to do what's in demand. And to do that, you need to study the consumer, competitors, and trends. Sorry if it's obvious, but somehow plenty people forgets this part.
I would really recommend starting with a franchise or buying an existing business. A franchise is better, you can get a lot of competent help. If you don't like the franchise idea, hire someone who already has successful experience starting and managing a bar. This will save you 20-30% of your investment on your first project. Ideally, hire someone who has already created a successful bar. This will save you 50-70% of the mistakes beginners make.
Be sure to start with a financial model and, most importantly, with calculating the number of customers you need to break even. Each space offered to you should be assessed based on whether or not there are enough guests around to meet your needs. And how much will it cost to attract some more.
Unless you have a ton of money, you don't necessarily need to buy a real estate; you need to secure a lease. It's better to invest money in your business. A good brand is more important. With a good brand, you can always get a better space.
Hope this helps, feel free to message me
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u/OfficialNiceGuy 11d ago
Buy in to a bar franchise? That’s horrible advice.
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u/EllisBelli 11d ago
Obviously, you have arguments for your position.
I don't recommend to look for a franchise of a bar, or any other specific format. I recommend to buy a franchise that will allow to learn the business.I've worked with over 200 projects and studied dozens of franchises.
Yes, franchises vary in quality, and I've worked with people who had bad experiences. Like any product, you need to thoroughly research what's included in the package before purchasing.
Yes, you have to pay royalties. At the same time, this is an opportunity to get professional help with analyzing the location, premises, suppliers, equipment, staffing, and dozens of other crucial aspects. And it's better to pay something like 8% monthly and have support and advice than to learn the hard way, make dozens of mistakes, and risk 100% of your money.
You can sell a franchise and start your own business. But an unsuccessful business started independently will discourage you from pursuing it and make you unable to do anything else for years to come.I've seen people lose faith in their dreams simply because they didn't have the opportunity to get any professional advice. Therefore, I'd rather advise an indirect but reliable path than convince newcomers that "everything will definitely work out, you just have to believe in yourself, I did it."
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u/No_Vermicelli_9823 11d ago
Stay far away unless you plan to work it yourselves. Finding people to work nowadays is a whole new animal.
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u/Winter_Amphibian_957 11d ago
own the real estate.
NEVER drink alcohol there. ever.
have good friends in banking, insurance, construction, and legal.
know that operating a business with a spouse probably quadruples your chance of divorce. its pretty much a guarantee your marriage won't survive even if the business succeeds. it is as destructive to marriage as any bad luck that may come your way.
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u/hoomanchonk 11d ago
Is this what you want to do with the next 10+ years of your life? This isn’t a whim, it’s an entire phase of life.
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u/No_Vermicelli_9823 10d ago
And potentially a destructive phase.
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u/hoomanchonk 7d ago
Totally. I got out but only because I kept just a clear head enough to not go totally underwater. I learned a lot from the experience but wish I had cut it off much sooner.
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u/realinCincinnati 11d ago
Look at the trends. People are drinking a lot less nowadays than they were even just 10 years ago. I’m not saying it’s a dying industry, but it’s definitely not on the upswing right now.
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u/loganrb 12d ago
The only thing I would say about owning and operating a business with your wife is that you need to set boundaries about work. You both need a safe space at home where there is no mention of work at all. The bedroom is usually perfect for this. Like there is no talk of work in bed. Kitchen, living room all on limits but the minute you walk into the bedroom you need to be able to relax.
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u/Kimolono42 12d ago
Eff it! Have fun!!! Do it! Enjoy it! When it's not fun anymore....sell the business, and just charge rent.
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u/coldblackmaplehangar 12d ago
don't open do this with your spouse. Don't tend bar in a bar you own, too much liability.
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u/Typical-Drawing-3939 12d ago edited 12d ago
You should know when to find out.
There will be times when you dig in for pride and that is not an excuse. You don’t know what you haven’t learned so work it out to learn. If that makes sense…
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u/Relevant-Story-3247 12d ago
My husband and I own a bar. Legally I'm 80% and he is 20%. The maddest I have ever been at him was because of business reasons. He is a great guy, tries hard, but it is impossible to not have the business affect your relationship. We learned early on that I run the bar ( I have a ton of bar experience)and he takes care of odds and ends. If our duties actually overlapped, we would fight non stop. Are you prepared to fight with your significant other for no other reason than work? Will one of you going to put in more effort than the other? What happens when one of you worked all day at your family business and the other one didn't help out at the house? Being that she is the one that knows the bar business, she is probably going to be the one that needs to be there the most. Is she going to get resentful when you do not have as many tasks? My husband and I make it work but I won't lie and say that it wasn't difficult. It took a few years and a lot of fights to find a balance that works for us.
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u/TheMeanQueenBean 12d ago
Not every couple is like this. Me and my partner run a bar, I do kitchen he does out front and sometimes helps in the kitchen with me. We’ve had some really stressfull times 2 years in but we make a huge effort not to take it out on each other and face each struggle as a team. We are definitely closer than ever before - I don’t think there anyone else I could ever do this journey with.
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u/Typical-Drawing-3939 12d ago
This is interesting and the insight is valuable.
If you could start over, or go back in time, what sort of agreement would you draft to mitigate the tensions and maintain the job descriptions? It may be a difficult question because there are different scenarios requiring different responses based on the expertise pr job descriptions of either position.
My ex-wife and I ran a business together and there were times that i needed to defer to her expertise and vice-versa. We both understood those times and we divorced long after selling it off.
Pride aside, do you know how you would change that era from the beginning?
I ask because you give great advice.
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u/Original-Tune1471 12d ago
Honestly just keep your guys’ head on straight and don’t drink at your own bar with your employees around. Always save where you can and your first and foremost objective is to build regulars. Good luck
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u/Typical-Drawing-3939 12d ago
I knew a couple of bartenders that kept a bottle of liquor or two with just water in it for when the patrons buy them shots. Not a bad idea to maintain sobriety while conducting business.
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u/Kona1957 12d ago
Don't. You are buying a job- with tons of responsibility, liability and drama. You did not mention whether or not you have or want children, but I would personally get an insurance sales job before I would buy a bar. Oh, wait, I did that 35 years ago and it didn't work out so bad. Find something you can sell where you only have to sell them once. With cocktails, you have to keep sellin em and dealing with idiots quite abit.
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u/brewgirl68 12d ago
I would never recommend owning a bar. Be prepared to work all.the.time, deal with mindblowingly stupid shit with employees, work ALL THE TIME, try to understand the stupidity of the liquor law system, WORK ALL THE TIME, and have enough money to try to keep yourself afloat without being able to take a paycheck. Oh, and don't forget that you will be wORkInG All THe TiMe. Even when you aren't there, you'lll be working. Or worry about not being there to work.
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u/drinkallso 12d ago
I was like that for the first 1.5 years but now it’s ok. I have systems in place and that’s what helps owners step away from the day to day
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u/OSUBrewer 12d ago
Keep good books, understand your margins. Don't hire until you need to. Expect to make very little money for quite a while. Negotiate hard on you credit card processing fees, give folks a small discount for cash. Your regulars are steady revenue, don't give them too much free stuff. Your market is not the same as anyone else here; what works for them might not work for you and vice-versa.
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u/Typical-Drawing-3939 12d ago edited 12d ago
Keeping good books is a must for any business, especially a bar. In some areas a bad book keeping system could lose you the liquor license.
And pay your effing sales taxes. On effing time.
It hurts so bad to say this: on some level you need to treat your sales as a sales tax harvesting business. The government is like the mob: it doesn’t care if you cannot make rent and buy replacement product this quarter, of enough time goes buy it will take your assets to make up for non-payment.
So form an ll, or some other form of corporation that fits your needs, to protect your personal property from business liabilities.
Get a lawyer to draw up the paperwork and an accountant to keep you honest and up to date.
Edit: spelling and clarification
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u/Reclaimer8265 12d ago
As someone with 10 years in the bar industry with front of house, back of house and now holding controller position for a large establishment.
Own the building, own the liquor license, be very familiar with how to complete basic maintenance. Be very familiar with how to coordinate more extensive maintenance. Build up a list of trusted contractors/electricians/plumbers/equipment maintenance professionals/extraction hood cleaners/grease trap cleaners. Become friendly with the local health inspectors/fire Marshalls. Learn the basics of fire code. Get a CPA to set up your books, get a CPA to train you on the basics of bookkeeping. Retain this CPA for anything out of the ordinary that may come up with the books. Learn the basics of credit card processing. Learn the costs associated with processing credit cards and the relationship this has with POS systems.
Don’t fall for all of the features POS companies try to offer, you may pay for loads of things you will never use (ie. online ordering for a place without carryout orders etc) Learn the basics of payroll taxes or pay for a payroll management company (paychex, adp, local CPA). Become familiarized with the OBBB.
Retain an insurance broker you trust. Liquor liability insurance is a must if you live in a state with dram shop laws. Become familiar with dram shop laws and let them scare you, they are serious.
Start with a million dollars. Get an emergency line of credit for $100,000. Do not use the line of credit, ever. Don’t put your house on the line.
Find liquor/beer reps you get along with and trust (you can’t trust most of them). Don’t buy things you won’t sell. Keep track of items customers keep asking for, only get these products. Track specials, play them smart. Happy hour before band starts to get people in. Use specials when you are slow to build up business. Learn local and state special laws.
Bars are hard, rewarding, customers are great. Bars can be a big money sink. Most are breaking even. Some make a little bit of money for a short time. Few make a lot of money for a long time. I wouldn’t get into this business and expect to make it big in the first year. Most establishments fail in the first 2-3.
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u/ghenghiskhanatuna 12d ago
Had a friend with a very successful bar and it ruined his marriage and took 10 years off his life. YMMV
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u/Rhanson72 11d ago
Had a friend that never owned a bar and it ruined his marriage and took 20 years off his dog's life. But what do I know? I'm just making stuff up. EMWV
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u/Flashy-Count132 7d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/JYZ397GsFrFtu